Strength of the Cabal
by Ortaga
Summary: The Exo hunter, Otis-14, and his trusted ally, Jaina, an Awoken Warlock, travel into the dreaded asteroid belt in hope of destroying a Cabal super weapon before in rains hell on the rest of the solar system.
1. Chapter 1

The Tower, Earth

After the events in the Black Garden, Otis-14 walked to the balcony and looked over this last human city. Like most guardians he hated not having a defined goal. This endless skirmishing with the Cabal, Hive, Vex, Fallen, and Darkness just irritated him. he needed something to set his sights on and achieve. Of course he could go to the crucible and continue to hone his skills, but he didn't feel like fighting guardians without purpose even more than aliens. He ran his hands along the rifle the stranger had given him, being an EXO he had a large curiosity of mechanics and computers. "Little light," he said, "can you tell me what I'm holding?"

The Ghost materialized out of thin air, then cast a beam of blue light on the rifle, taking it out of Otis-14's hand. "It appears to be a pulse rifle, it shoots standard ammunition, but this is strange," the ghost took a long pause, "some parts of this shouldn't even exist yet". With that he gave the pulse rifle back to Otis-14.

"Shouldn't exist? Where in the hell did she get this thing?" asked Otis-14 as he slid the rifle on his back and stepped away from the railing he was leaning against.

The ghost appeared again to say, "I know I'm smart, but I simply don't have the answers to your questions. I feel like we will soon meet from our strange friend and learn more."

Otis-14 heard the splashing of boots in water approach him from the back, but the rhythm of these steps was something he could never forget. He turned around to Jaina, an Awoken Warlock. Seeing the way her purple hair fell on her face always made Otis-14 feel happy, or what he thought was happy. He never knew if he could actually feel emotion or not. When the EXO's were built it was said some of the more advance models could feel which made them so human like that if one were to have its face covered it would be hard to tell if it was human or not. "I heard what you did in the Black Garden. Did you actually kill a Vex god? What did it look like? Man I wish you could drink so we could go to a pub and you could tell me about your 'heroic' journey into the heart of the Vex," she said teasing him, though he actually did want to hear his story.

Otis-14 shrugged and said, "We can go to the pub, I just won't drink." He wished he could have put a smile with that sentence, but he was sure Jaina understood.

They went to the pub and after a couple hours of Otis-14 telling his story and Jaina laughing, teasing, or asking questions, Jaina took the last sip of her beer, licked her lips and said "Okay, that's all pretty crazy and I'm happy you're still alive and all that, but what I really wanted to talk about is something bigger. Bigger and badder than a Vex god!", a grin crept across her face. "When I was on mars I got into a Cabal base on my little ghosty hacked into their computer, where he found something those damn Cabals tried really hard to keep hidden." She leaned in closer, close enough that if Otis-14 could smell he'd be able to smell whatever sent she had, another thing he wished he could do. "Plans for a Cabal super weapon being built somewhere in the asteroid belt." By now she was really excited and talking a little louder than she should when telling someone a big secret.

"Oh really!", Otis-14 said as he stood up from his stool, "Before you go any further, I think I should take you home."

Jaina laughed, "If you weren't an EXO I'd think you'd be trying to get me in bed." She winked then stumbled off her stool. She always forgot how much alcohol affected her. Otis-14 thought it may have something to do with her being an Awoken, but the quib about sleeping with Jaina made Otis-14 long even more to be living, because he would never know the warmth of a woman's body against his own after sharing in the passion of making love to each other. If there ever was a woman he would do that with, it would be Jaina.

When they got to Jaina's apartment, she threw off he Warlock sash and revealed he perfect blue skinned arms underneath. Then she flopped onto her bed with a chuckle and said, "Those damn crazy Cabals are making a thing that shoots asteroids using the gravity of planets or something stupid like!" She laughed some more then her head hit her pillow and she was fast asleep. Otis-14 tucked her under her blanket, it was the one he found for her with howling wolf crest on it. He tucked her in and made his way to her couch, though he knew that she was completely safe with her ghost watching over her, he always felt the need to watch her when she had too much to drink.

He laid down on her couch and set himself for power down until seven in the morning, so he could get started on figuring out what Jaina was talking about. He didn't want to get started without her though, she always liked to be kept in the loop of any findings he made, so he would wait for her to get up before he got started hunting. He threw his hunter cloak on the floor, as was he thought to be a human thing to do before sleeping, then powered down.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaina's Apartment, Earth

Otis-14 powered on at seven in the morning, but soon realized that Jaina would not get up for some time more. He stood up, picked his cloak off the floor, then walked to the window and looked out over the city scape view that she had. After a while he heard Jaina stumble out of bed and walk into her living room. Her hair was a mess and she still had a very sleep-like look on her face. She walked over to the couch and fell into its cushions. "I feel like shit," she said rubbing her eyes.

Otis-14 sat next to her on the couch and rested his arm on the back and replied, "Maybe next time don't drink enough for the both of us."

Jaina chuckled, rubbed her eyes and said, "I need to get ready before we get started on this. My ghost will upload the files to my holo-table while I'm in the shower, so you can get a head start on things." With that Jaina go off the couch and went into the bathroom.

Otis-14 walked to the holo-table. It was the size of a regular dining table but the surface turned into a holo-screen that could project holograms around the room, this made it very easy to analyse data and plan out missions. Jaina's ghost hovered over the terminal and shot its blue light into it. A moment passed then the table filled the room with holograms of the asteroid belt, mechanical engineering, attack plans and vectors, and a new Cabal Warlord whose name was left out of the file.

Otis-14 had been studying the files for about an hour when Jaina finally walked out of her room, she was wearing simple gray pants, a light blue shirt and a white scarf, and yet in Otis-14's mind she still looked absolutely stunning. Her ghost followed her, somewhere, she would not tell him exactly, she found a new shell for her ghost so now it was a dark red. Otis-14 liked this, because before both their ghosts looked the exact same and he would always get them confused. "Morning Otie," Jaina said with a yawn. She was the only one to call him "Otie". He liked it, and he was she she liked it better than saying Otis-14 every time she wanted his attention. "Find anything in these files yet?"

"Well the fact that they have a nameless Warlord running this operation tells me that it's either super important, or a secret operation that even most of the Cabal don't know about," he said as he grabbed the floating file that listed the operations chain of command and sent it Jaina's way. "Also, I was thinking that because this is so close to the Reef, that maybe we should alert the Queen about this threat."

Jaina crossed her arms, "That bitch gets whatever she has coming." Otis-14 had forgotten that Jaina had once tried to appeal to Queen in hopes of saving another guardian, but the Queen refused and the guardian was used as a sacrifice to a Fallen god. Ever since then Jaina refuses to do any kindness for the Queen and the Awoken out in the Reef. "As a matter of fact I think we should just wait till the Cabal have this thing running and hope they shoot her out of the void first!" Jaina stepped back and turned around. She put her hands behind her head and took a deep breath, "No, but I won't set foot in that woman's court ever again." Otis-14 just hoped the favor the Queen would call him on for wouldn't have to involve Jaina, because he knew he couldn't make both of them happy at the same time.

Jaina's ghost appeared excitedly and said, "I found something! Because I was only able to a portion of the file about this space station, I feel as though we should find the rest of it. There is mention of a Cabal Centurion that is helping with the stations defenses and his ship is still stationed at Mars, so if we are lucky then we can get aboard and steel the rest of the file." Otis-14 and Jaina looked at each other and shrugged.

"A two person boarding party of a Cabal frigate, going after the one thing they are trying to a keep a very buried secret, and we don't have support of the Vanguard. I like those odds," laughed Otis-14.

"Well if you really knew the odds you wouldn't be laughing," said one of the ghosts. Otis-14 hated that they had extremely similar voices.

Jaina laughed and went into her room to get ready. When she was preparing for a fight she was always fast, she knew exactly where everything was and what she would need. She came out with her helmet under her arm and her hand on her hip, "We are taking my ship."


	3. Chapter 3

The Tower, Earth

Jaina and Otis-14 stepped off the lift onto the tower plaza. This was Otis-14's favorite place to be, he felt truly at home here with all the other guardians. He always remembered this place when he was spending weeks or even in the odd case months out in the wilds fighting off the darkness. There were many familiar faces here. His old friend Vince was talking with the Cryptarchs, Vince was the hunter who inspired Otis-14 to follow the path of the Bladedancer. He was just as much a mentor to him as Cayde-6. He found another friend, Bjorn a Sunsinger Warlock, who joined him on a high priority mission from the Speaker to scout a Fallen breeding ground on the boot of Italy. This was home to Otis-14, this is where he felt calm and safe. "So why did you want to take your ship to badly?" Otis-14 asked trying to break the lull in his conversation with Jaina.

"Otie, remember that mission that didn't officially happen, but if it did, I got selected by the Vanguard and the Speaker to go with a team, of Awoken guardians, to not exactly break into the prison of elders, to not steal a special Fallen, that never existed?"

"What?"

"Well to do that mission that never happened, Amanda Holliday and Dead Orbit's engineers took some scavenged hive tech and gave my ship a few special upgrades that I believe will help us a lot on this mission of ours. My favorite being the cloaking device." Jaina said with a little smile and jump. Jaina always got excited about going into space. She was unique in that she loved the void. Otis-14 was like any other hunter, he prefered solid ground, out in the wilds, alone, rifle in hand, and his ghost looking over his shoulder. "Also, it has missiles that can pass through enemy shields!"

"I really hope we won't have to fight our way to this station," said Otis-14's ghost. "I feel so useless in space combat." They make their way to the hangar bay where Jaina's ship was docked. From the outside it look like a modified, gunmetal gray, Phaeton class jumpship. It had larger exhaust manifolds, reflective one-way canopy, and rows of missiles under each of its wings. One look at it and anyone knew whoever was behind the controls meant business. "Well it looks badass!"

"I know, right? I named her Gloria, after my mother."

"You can remember the name of your mother?"

"Human and Awoken guardians can remember parts of their old lives. I looked up my family name and found my grandson, who fought in the battle that almost killed the traveler. There isn't much more than that I'm afraid, other than the strange dreams and nightmares that are more like memories than anything else." This left Otis-14 puzzled and longing to be alive even more. He wished he knew what he was in his past life, what he did, and why he was chosen to become a guardian. "Anyway, I think it's time we got on board!"

Their ghosts transferred them aboard the Gloria, Otis-14 took one look around the small cabin area and noticed four seats, a weapons locker, monitors for the ships "special" equipment, and what looked like a suicide lever. Otis-14 reached for, but Jania slapped his hand away, "Don't touch that! It will open up the cabin and vent us right into the void. None of us were to risk being captured by the enemy."

"That sounds pleasant."

Jaina scoffed then took her seat at the controls, Otis-14 made his way to the co-pilot seat. Otis-14 rarely worked with anyone other than Jaina, hunters had a way with working alone, but he only felt comfortable working in space with her by his side. "Otie, you know what I just realized? We can't jump too close to this Cabal ship or they will pick us up on their radar."

"Well then, what do you think we should do?" The ship rumbled as it broke through Earth's atmosphere.

"We could jump in just out of range of their high sensitivity radar, then cloak up and glide in with one of their patrols." Otis-14 just nodded in agreement. He just wanted to be on that ship as fast as possible. "Sparky, put in the coordinates then get ready for a jump!". Jaina's ghost appeared, shot a blue light into the control panel, the disappeared just as quickly. Jaina pushed the throttles all the way forward. The view outside turned into a purple blur, then a few minutes later they were back in the void, and in the distance was the silhouette of a massive Cabal cruiser.


End file.
